grace grits and gardening

ramblings from an arkansas farm girl

Frog Legs? Yes, please.

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Had any good frog legs lately? Deep fried with white cream gravy?

When I was in high school, the Wilson Tavern in Wilson, Arkansas had the best all-you-can-eat frog leg buffet on Friday nights. They were slap yo’ momma good.

Frog legs are a true southern delicacy, and my boyfriend, Steve, could make an impressive dent in that buffet. Sadly, The Wilson Tavern closed, but maybe someone in Wilson still has that recipe?

The Wilson Tavern
During the hot steamy Arkansas summers, hours after sunset, Steve taught me to frog gig. We spent many a hot date trolling ditch banks in a john boat looking for frogs. Romantic, no?

Steve wore a flashlight strapped around his head like a coal miner. It takes two hands to properly gig a frog. The victims were thrown into a burlap sack in the belly of the boat where they jumped and twitched sporadically. With my feet holding down the bag-o-frogs, I watched for water moccasins in the low, overhanging tree branches. Mississippi County ditches were tangled with brush and twisty vines, the perfect hiding place for snakes, and each came with an intricately crafted beaver dam.

Frog gigging was not a sport for the faint hearted. 

Recently at my neighborhood Dallas grocery store, I asked one of the workers to point me in the direction of the frog legs. She responded with a blank stare on her young tree-hugger face, as if I hailed from a far away galaxy.

After a pause she replied, “We have organic fruit from Frog Hollow Farm.”

I returned her stare knowing she wasn’t yet born when Yoda trained Luke Skywalker in that frog pond. Then she added, “And we sell organic wine from Frog Pond Winery.”

OhNeverYouMindHippieGirl. 

Apparently this particular grocery store was a big annual supporter of Save the Frogs Day. I didn’t have the heart to explain to the young grocery clerk that the cute little bright green and yellow tree frogs disappearing from the rain forests in Belize, with zero leg meat, aren’t the same ones we gigged in the swampy ditches of Keiser, Arkansas or ate at The Wilson Tavern. I kept this information to myself, paid for a bag of organic asparagus and politely left.

Soon I’ll be back in Arkansas for a visit. Maybe while I’m there, I will eat a platter of frog legs. They taste just like chicken. Only better.

talya

Musical Pairings:

Kermit, “It Ain’t Easy Being Green”
Brad Paisley, “Mud on the Tires”

Sushi and the Dreaded Freshman 15?

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Everyone should be fortunate enough to experience dorm living. It’s a invaluable rite of passage into college life and adulthood during an important time of personal growth. You learn about yourself sharing 250 square feet with a total stranger, who may or may not be crazy. And you’ll make lifelong friends. Ok so far this is sounding very Dr. Seuss-ish, “and will you succeed, yes you will indeed, 98 and 3/4 percent guaranteed…” But it’s true.

I spent my first college semester at Arkansas State, when they were the politically incorrect Indians. Now the mascot has been changed to Red Wolves, which I choose to ignore. Why are people so sensitive? My roommate and I had a great time at ASU, going to football games and parties and sharing clothes. We made many, many late night Taco Bell runs for tostadas. We were absolutely addicted to tostadas. 


At mid-term, I transferred to Baylor knowing only two people, my boyfriend and his brother. I had no girlfriends, and no late night Taco Bell runs, so it was an adjustment. My first roomie was a wacky sorority beee-atch named Candy from San Antonio. She hated me right out of the gate because a) she had been trying to move one of her big haired, tanned sorority sisters into her room, and b) she thought all people from Arkansas were as dumb as root vegetables. Each afternoon she whipped up some knockoff version of lemon icebox pie in our tiny dorm room, stirring it with her finger, as she had no utensils. She proudly gave these pies to all the unsuspecting little pledges. I may have been a small-town country chick from Arkansas, but I knew how to use forks and spoons, I knew about germs and food poisoning, and I knew how to make a real lemon icebox pie -with freshly squeezed lemons, not that fake stuff in the green bottle. I also knew right then and there, as she stirred that pie filling with her unpolished finger, that I would never belong in a sorority. Candy and I parted ways soon enough, and I went on to make great friends who used eating utensils, for the most part. 

Dorm living has changed a bit since the early 1980s. As we moved Kelsey into her dorm room at the enormous University of Texas, where dorms actually have individual zip codes, we noted all the girls had hot pink matching bedding and carpets and beaded curtains with adorable matchy-matchy everything and storage bins and shoe racks from The Container Store. Each girl room was instantaneously transformed from cinder block to barbie dream house. The guys wheeled in 42-inch flat screen LCD Sonys, Playstation gaming systems and huge Alienware desktop computers with boxes full of cords. Each boy room was expensively transformed into Best Buy. Did they attend class via Wii? At Baylor, our electronics were limited to the console television in the common room where we all gathered each afternoon at 2:00 without fail to watch General Hospital. Luke and Laura were hooking up. There was no campus food court. In Kelsey’s dorm, there was a sushi bar downstairs. The sushi-dorm room combo is just inherently wrong.  Everyone knows freshmen eat pizza.


Now Tate is a freshman at the University of Arkansas living at Maple Hill South. It’s relatively new and  very nice per dorm room guidelines. He moved in with his graduation gift flatscreen, huge computer, suitcase of clothes and 3 pairs of shoes. Within one weeks’ time, he decided all Texas students were grouped together at Maple Hill. Is this true? Are the Texas students segregated? Maybe Arkansas folks think Texas people are snooty, like Candy thought I had no shoes and dated my cousins? 

Maple Hill South
UofA
Elevator Sign

We visited Tate last weekend. His dorm room wasn’t as messy as I expected. There were four Glade Air Fresheners in that tiny space, so it didn’t stink. There were a couple of interesting signs posted in the common area, the first beside the elevator – “do not push elevator buttons with you feet or spit in the elevator.” Really? But the buttons are shoulder height. Tate clarified, “Yeah, people are always pushing the buttons with their feet.” And spitting in the elevator? Who does this? Texan Razorbacks apparently. 

UofA Pet Policy



And evidently someone smuggled in their pet piranha along with their XBox one year? Or a squirrel? Or a pet mallard duck? Of course it is Arkansas. Pig Soooie!

talya

Musical Pairings:
Green Day, “Time of Your Life”

Otter: Flounder, I am appointing you pledge representative to the social committee.
Flounder: Gee Otter, thanks. What do I have to do?
Otter: It means you have to drive us to the Food King. 
(Animal House)

“You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. You’re on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the one who’ll decide where to go…” 

(Dr. Seuss, Oh, the Places You’ll Go!)

Houses, Hogs and Cotton Candy

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Two weeks ago, on a Friday night at American Airlines Center, during the second half of the Dallas Mavericks-Indiana Pacers game, John and I decided to buy a house. Finally, after 6 months of lengthy discussions regarding three houses we really liked, complete with detailed lists of pros & cons and bar charts, we made a snap decision. During the third quarter, over a Bud Lite, right after I went to the bathroom, we made a selection. Immediately, I shot off a text to Paula Larson, our real estate broker – like she didn’t have anything better to do, late on a Friday night. I wanted to get the message out there into cyber space, before we changed our mind. The game was plenty dull.
The extra tricky part of this equation is the location! location! location! The house we had finally decided on is 262 miles away, in Fayetteville, Arkansas. And we actually live in Dallas which could possibly make for a long morning commute for John. It’s not a bad drive for a weekend road trip and a Saturday night football game, but I imagine it would be a tad bit tedious on a daily basis. He doesn’t much enjoy his current 30 minute morning drive to Las Colinas. From Big D, Fayetteville is a straight shot up Central Expressway, north past the Red River, through Oklahoma with no reception – cellular or otherwise – and up to God’s country. Home of the Arkansas Razorbacks. 
Our plan has always been to move back home to Arkansas before we are dead. And dead is sneaking up. If we wait too long, we will soon wake up in an East Dallas assisted living facility, riding a bus to Walgreens for our prescriptions. And I don’t much like buses. We need to do this soon while we can make new friends.
CottonCandyMan
Not that we have anything against Dallas.  We love Dallas. It’s been a great place to live and raise our children. There are job opportunities and all the restaurants you could ever desire. But, we want season tickets to everything Razorback. I want to walk into Herman’s regularly and not think, “Oh look there’s a Razorback welcome mat at the front door.  How odd!” – because it isn’t odd there. I need to see the Ozark Mountains while I’m driving to Target instead of the cotton candy man on Gaston Avenue. In our barrio, there is actually a man who walks around in the afternoons with a huge tower of cotton candy for sale. I believe it is the strangest thing I have seen in our neighborhood, and there have been many. We live nowhere near a ballpark.
We were ready. If we buy something, this would force our hand, right? We would have to list our house and sell and move. Right? Or maybe John was trying to get me the hell out of Texas, so he could truly work 24-7…? There would be no one to nag him about going to the doctor. He could snore to his heart’s content without being elbowed and told he has apnea. He could weigh each morning in peace.
After thinking and talking about this house for six months, as well as not talking about it and totaling ignoring the subject, we made a decision.  Wooooo Pig Sooooie!!!!  We decided to make an offer, as if we were deciding which movie to go to the next evening. Paula, our patient, charming broker no doubt now recognized she was dealing with lunatics.
The following day was Saturday morning. And here we go again. John had a mid morning flight to Atlanta. He needed to leave the house fairly early. He had to run by the cleaners because someone (me) had forgotten to pick up his shirts. He had to run by his office on the way to the airport (why? I don’t know – habit?). Oh and, of course, he still needed to pack.  This trip was for several days, unlike his previous red-eye to Pittsburg – more clothes to ponder, shoes and belts to match up – just overall more challenging.  AND, in the middle of this, we had to get our offer in on the house. We had to buy a house.
Apparently, after sitting on the market for months with no activity and several price reductions, we were suddenly buying THE most popular house in Fayetteville. The seller had coincidentally received a contract on our house the day before. Naturally. Then, as Paula worked up the contract, John packed and I tried to just breathe, a second offer came in on the house! Really? What were the odds? Now it was a competition. There were three offers.
Paula was a trooper – emailing, texting and calling me back and forth, along with the listing agent. John was already in route to the office. The three of us strategized over a conference call as John tried to print his boarding pass. We had a second conference call while he was in his car headed to the airport. Last night he dreamed he had missed his flight… After John was on the plane and headed to Atlanta, I signed the contract to officially throw our offer in the ring. 
This is how we do things. This is how we bought our current home. Spur of the moment decision during a midnight drive by, leaving a nearby party. Just like that. We weren’t even house shopping. We didn’t look at any other homes. And John immediately left for Denver during the contract negotiations. But we did it and never looked back.
Within 30 minutes Paula called to let me know that we didn’t get the house. Someone else paid over asking price. Someone else was buying our house in Fayetteville. It was just as well, I was exhausted and needed a nap. This just wasn’t the right house for us. Maybe we will find one soon or maybe not. Maybe we won’t find one until ten minutes before Kelsey walks down the aisle (someday). But all it takes is 20 seconds of insane courage. And we have the insanity part down to a science.
talya
Musical Pairings:
John Parr, “St. Elmo’s Fire Man in Motion”
Eurythmics, “Sweet Dreams”

  1. “All it takes is 20 seconds of insane courage and great things will happen. I promise.” Benjamin Mee in “We Bought a Zoo”


Food. Farm. Garden. Life.

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